The data watchdog has concluded its High Court proceedings against X, while the UK’s CMA has dropped its investigation into Microsoft and Inflection AI.
Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) has concluded legal proceedings it brought against X over the usage of EU citizen data to train its AI chatbot, Grok.
In an announcement released today (4 September), the DPC stated the proceedings have been “struck out”, due to X’s agreement to suspend its processing of the personal data of the social media platform’s EU and EEA users on a permanent basis. X first suspended this processing last month shortly after the DPC first launched the legal action against the company.
The DPC’s High Court proceedings kicked off in early August due to concerns that X’s decision to automatically use posts and interactions from its site to train Grok was not compliant with GDPR.
DPC chair Dr Des Hogan welcomed today’s outcome, stating that it “protects the rights of EU/EEA citizens”.
“This action further demonstrates the DPC’s commitment to taking appropriate action where necessary, in conjunction with its European peer regulators,” he said. “We are grateful for the Court’s consideration of the matter.”
The DPC also announced that it was making a request to the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) with the intention of triggering a discussion on “core issues that arise in the context of processing for the purpose of developing and training an AI model”, with the hopes of obtaining clarity on the issue.
In particular, the DPC is inviting the EDPB to consider the extent to which personal data is processed at various stages of AI model training and operation, including both first-party and third-party data and what particular legal considerations arise as a result.
“The DPC hopes that the resulting opinion will enable proactive, effective and consistent Europe-wide regulation of this area more broadly,” said DPC commissioner Dale Sunderland.
All clear for Microsoft
Meanwhile, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has dropped its investigation of Microsoft’s relationship with Inflection AI. The CMA first launched its probe in July to investigate whether Microsoft hiring former Inflection AI employees and other deals between the two companies had implications relevant to a merger situation.
The CMA was concerned that this relationship could lessen competition in the UK market, but has now decided that a further investigation is not warranted.
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